Ecclesiastes 1:3–15

³What does man gain by all the toil

at which he toils under the sun?

⁴A generation goes, and a generation comes,

but the earth remains for ever.

⁵The sun rises and the sun goes down,

and hastens to the place where it rises.

⁶The wind blows to the south,

and goes round to the north;

round and round goes the wind,

and on its circuits the wind returns.

⁷All streams run to the sea,

but the sea is not full;

to the place where the streams flow,

there they flow again.

⁸All things are full of weariness;

a man cannot utter it;

the eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

⁹What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done;

and there is nothing new under the sun.

¹⁰Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already,

in the ages before us.

¹¹There is no remembrance of former things,

nor will there be any remembrance

of later things yet to happen

among those who come after.

¹²I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³And I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. ¹⁴I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

¹⁵What is crooked cannot be made straight,

and what is lacking cannot be numbered.